by Peter L. DeGroote

About the author: Peter L. DeGroote is a pastor in the Baltimore-Washington United Methodist Conference.

A member of my church recently dropped by my office. In the course of our conversation he mentioned that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. “We are just simply Christian people defending the Christian way of life,” he said. And he meant it.

My response was brief and direct. “You can’t be both Christian and a member of the KKK, or any other white supremacy group,” I said. “They are contradictory patterns of living. When guided by one, we squeeze out the other.” I now receive telephone calls from this person, designed to give me an opportunity to “reconsider” my position.

The KKK is but one of...